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Grantees of royal lands and pardons
(1155-1158)The Great Rolls of the Pipe are the central record of the crown compiling returns of income and expenditure from the sheriffs and farmers of the various English counties or shires. This is the oldest series of public records, and the earliest surviving instances of many surnames are found in the Pipe Rolls. The rolls for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of the reign of king Henry II are covered by this volume: this is a period for which there are no other general English records, so these rolls give details of many persons and incidents otherwise utterly unknown. Most (but not all) of the entries in which names appear relate to payments for grants of land and pardons. There is a separate return in each year for each shire, the name of the shire being here printed at the top of each page. Wales was still independent, in separate kingdoms, at this period, and is not included, except for 'Herefordshire in Wales'. There is virtually no reference to the palatinates of Chester, Lancaster and Durham, or to Cumberland and Westmoreland in the far northwest.

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Grantees of royal lands and pardons
(1175-1176)The Great Rolls of the Pipe are the central record of the crown compiling returns of income and expenditure from the sheriffs and farmers of the various English counties or shires. This is the oldest series of public records, and the earliest surviving instances of many surnames are found in the Pipe Rolls. This is the roll for the 22nd year of the reign of king Henry II, that is, accounting for the year from Michaelmas 1175 to Michaelmas 1176. Most (but not all) of the entries in which names appear relate to payments for grants of land and fines or pardons. The large number of payments of fines for forest transgressions has been interpreted as a form of compounding for pardons by those who had rebelled during the recent years of unrest; or, looking at it in a different way, a form of extortion from the king in order to raise money to pay off the mercenaries with whose help he had quelled the rebellions. There is a separate return in each year for each shire, the name of the shire being here printed at the top of each page. Wales was still independent, in separate kingdoms, at this period, and is not included, except for 'Herefordshire in Wales'.

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Grantees of royal lands and pardons
(1176-1177)The Great Rolls of the Pipe are the central record of the crown compiling returns of income and expenditure from the sheriffs and farmers of the various English counties or shires. This is the oldest series of public records, and the earliest surviving instances of many surnames are found in the Pipe Rolls. This is the roll for the 23rd year of the reign of king Henry II, that is, accounting for the year from Michaelmas 1176 to Michaelmas 1177. Most (but not all) of the entries in which names appear relate to payments for grants of land and fines or pardons. The large number of payments of fines for forest transgressions has been interpreted as a form of compounding for pardons by those who had rebelled during the recent years of unrest. There is a separate return in each year for each shire, the name of the shire being here printed at the top of each page. Wales was still independent, in separate kingdoms, at this period, and is not included, except for 'Herefordshire in Wales'.

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Pipe Roll
(1201-1202)The Great Rolls of the Pipe are the central record of the crown compiling returns of income and expenditure from the sheriffs and farmers of the various English counties or shires. This is the oldest series of public records, and the earliest surviving instances of many surnames are found in the Pipe Rolls. Two sets of pipe rolls were prepared, not exact duplicates, the main series being the Treasurer's or Exchequer rolls, the copies (of which fewer have survived) being the Chancellor's rolls. The Chancellor's roll (or Antigraphum) for the 3rd year of king John became separated from that series at some date, and found its way to the miscellaneous records in the Chapter House at Westminster. As it happens, the Chancellor's roll for that year is in a better state of preservation than the Treasurer's roll, so it was chosen for publication by the Commissioners on the Public Records of the Kingdom, by whom it was printed in extenso in 1833.

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Charter Rolls
(1050-1326)This abstract of the surviving charter rolls for 1300 to 1326, in the reigns of kings Edward I and II, was prepared by C. G. Crump and A. E. Stamp and published in 1908. The charter rolls not only recorded royal grants of lands, liberties and offices, but also enabled landowners to have their existing charters, their deeds of title, registered by the process of inspeximus and confirmation. After the Statute of Mortmain of 1279, this was of particular importance to religious houses, now greatly restricted in their ability to receive new donations of land, and anxious to prove title to their ancient property. Consequently, many charters of great age were copied onto the charter rolls.

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Norman Rolls
(1200-1417)The dukedom of Normandy is one of the appendages of the English crown, but actual possession of the dukedom was actively contested by the kings of France. During the periods of English power records were kept for Normandy similar to those of the royal administration in England, with enrolment of letters and grants of liberties and privileges and confirmations of previous enjoyed rights. The rolls for 1200 to 1205 and during the reassertion of English rule under Henry V in 1417, were edited by Thomas Duffus Hardy for the Commissioners of the Public Records, and published in 1835. Most of the persons mentioned are French inhabitants of Normandy or Englishmen in France, but there is also a long section (from page 122 onwards) of valuation of lands of Normans in England, where English jurors, county by English county, attest to acreage, numbers of cattle &c.